My iguana cage is silent. Just two weeks ago it was alive with sounds. I wish we’d just throw it out. The other night I heard a helicopter fly over my head. I hear a lot of helicopters at night when I’m trying to sleep but this one was different. I was at UCLA and it was late at night and it flew over my head and I ran away from it but then it landed on the top of the UCLA emergency room parking lot and I was glad the awful noise just stopped. The answering machine picks up and says I would like to know if you can join Kaleidoscope on Sunday night. I don’t recognize the voice but I know it has something to do with school. I hear my stomach gurgling. It sounds like a washing machine. The siren of a police car wakes my cat up. The sound of a blue jay squawking is stopped by a loud shriek. I wonder if my cat got the bird. A dog is howling like a werewolf next door. The thought of that makes me shiver. I hit my pen against the table like a drumstick. I’m drumming to “Love Me Do.” It’s suddenly so quiet. The French people to the left of us are not home. The Japanese people to the right are asleep. I don’t like it. The only sound I hear is the tap tap tapping of my foot on the floor and the rap rap rapping of my pen on the table . . . Paul McCartney’s voice sings in my head. I can’t believe he can sing so deep and so high at the same time. Marley Powell, 12Los Angeles, California
Poetry-Reflections
September 11, 2001
today is my birthday i am eight years old colored tissue and balloons then in one bright blinding moment life changes forever a thousand dreams float from the sky and scatter jigsaw over New York City Rachel Weary, 8St. Albert, Alberta, Canada
The Crash
I can’t remember the crash, Only closing my eyes, A falling feeling rushing through me, As if I were sinking under water. But there was none, just rocks. My eyes wouldn’t open. I remember thinking this must be What it’s like being dead. I floated out of the ditch, “Crawling like a cat,” they told me, And couldn’t feel myself. The youngest one said, “I thought you were dead,” And the other, “Will the eye ever grow back?” Teeth chattering, feeling of ice All over my body, And the voice repeating, “Don’t fall asleep, don’t fall asleep,” I wanted to sleep the pain away. I thought breaking bones Would hurt more, But my eye demanded attention. Behind a swollen, deformed eye, I still see swirling leaves, Crossed branches of trees, The flash of a strobe light, And the crash, again and again. My face has become An ugly changing rainbow, But inside I am the same as before. Can you see me in all my colors? Mark Roberts, 10Windsor, California
